


lullabies in seven measures

by daisybrien



Series: Double Trouble [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (a harsh tag but i mean), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BLUPJEANS BABY, Babies, Blupjeans Babies - Freeform, Child Abandonment, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Family Drama, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, Team as Family, to try and feel something again? yeah, u know when u watch vids of pets w babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: Any family that has a pet has to make extra adjustments for impending deliveries; the Starblaster Crew is no exception.A companion piece to Double Entendre, in which Fischer negotiates more family than they can handle.





	lullabies in seven measures

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot the most important member of the crew last time and I am here to fix this glaring mistake.

It takes longer than Barry believes is optimal for his safety by the time he’s scoured the ship’s kitchen for something to satiate Lup’s cravings. Her pleading demands had sent him frantically investigating supplementations for delicacies discovered sometime during their last half century of exploration, but by the time he’s satisfied and has made her a plate he’s deemed respectable – at least, in Taako’s absence – he is more than happy to finally shuffle his way back to the common room. He has two mugs of tea following behind him, aloft in two glittering Mage Hands and seemingly trotting along with his eager, almost joyful steps as the chatter of the commons grows louder in his ears. 

There’s an empty spot beside Lup there, he knows, and despite her recent dip in mood he is elated to know it is waiting there for him, and that she is waiting for him along with his food, and soon he can lay his head against his favourite pillow as of forever- 

“What-?” Barry sputters as he comes to an abrupt halt in the doorway, almost offended as he stands there agape, taking in the scene in front of him. “My spot!”

“Finally,” Lup groans, ignoring his plea and raising her hands to grab her food over the blob currently perched on top of her stomach, blatantly invading his exclusive spot on top of her current mound of a belly. “Kept the three of us waiting long enough.”

“Lup,” Barry whines, even as he settles in beside her on the couch. Magnus and Merle laughs where they’re sitting on the floor, scrabble tiles scattered around their crossed legs and the board knocked a kilter, noting his pout demurely. “Lup, you said you’d save my spot.”

“I did,” she says, words muffled as she tears into her plate. The Mage Hands hand off the tea into their hands gratefully, and she looks over the rim of her mug innocently.  
“Is there not enough room on the sofa?”

“You know what I mean,” Barry says. “Magnus, make them move.”

“Nuh-uh,” Magnus says, pondering the tiles in front of him, utterly perplexed. “Fischer can stay wherever they want. I’m not movin’ ‘em.”

“Lup,” Barry pleads again. Lup only peers at him from the corner of her eye as she chews another mouthful of food. One hand comes up on her belly, higher than the curve of it to rest on the creature currently squirming there contently. One tendril reaches up to wrap around Lup’s wrist in reciprocation, and Lup coos back at Fischer amicably.  
“C’mon Lup.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do, Barry.”

“That’s my spooooooot,” Barry stresses. “My pillow, Lup. You know how much I love my pillow.”

Lup scoffs, almost affronted, ignoring Merle’s gagging overtop of Magnus’ teasing. “Excuse me,” she says. “This is my stomach-”

“My pillow-“

“The stomach of your wife-“

“And my pillow-“

“Who after years of magic and some wild nights-” another gag, this time from Magnus as well- “is now carrying your two children.”

“And also my pillow,” Barry says softly, pouting as he looks up at Lup with wide eyes that wouldn’t work on anyone but her. “Our little beans love it when I rest my head there.”

“Well you shouldn’t have taken so long getting me my food,” Lup says. “No, scratch that, our food,” she corrects, and Fischer coos sadly as she frees her arm from the tentacles draped along them lazily. She puts her food to the side for a moment so she can take her turn. “Gods, you’re already failing your husbandly duties, you’re gonna let your children down now too?”

“Fantasy Jesus, Lup, we discussed this,” Merle groans, “how many times did we say that ‘kwyjibo’ isn’t valid-“

Lup waves a hand in his direction, ignoring him. “What have you got to say for yourself, Barold?”

“Yeah, Barold,” Magnus echoes, laughing.

“Can you at least take your turn?”

“I did, Merle!” she cries, exasperated by the interruptions. “Gods, you discovered that ape species eight cycles ago!”

“It’s a proper noun!” Merle cries louder. “Maybe if you weren’t in a lover’s quarrel you’d follow the rules better!”

“Alright, I’m out,” Magnus says, groaning as he picks himself up off the floor. “Merle can third-wheel by himself for a while.”

“Bah, I forfeit,” he responds, lifting himself up with Magnus’ help. “With the rights to victory.” 

Lup blows a raspberry at them as they leave the room, turning back to Barry with a raised eyebrow. Her hands fold themselves over top of Fischer’s bell, dipping slightly in the squishiness of it and eliciting a pleased little tune from them. “So?”

“I just wanted to get the very best for my family, that’s all,” Barry says. He leans forward, pressing against Lup’s side, watching her grin shift into something more bashful and soft in her haughtiness. His hands fit themselves on each side of her stomach where Fischer hasn’t wrapped themselves snug. “Can you forgive me?”

“I don’t know,” Lup replies. She looks down at him as she fits herself better in Barry’s embrace, smile wide. “I mean, I sure can, but I don’t know how betrayed the twins feel.”

“Oh,” Barry sighs. His fingers dig a little more insistently into her skin, pushing in deep. “I hope I can gain all three of your trust back. 

“Sounds like one helluva promise, Barold,” Lup says. She shifts between his diligent hands. “I know what you’re doing.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Barry deadpans, even as his fingers press just a little harder-

“Oh goddamn it,” Lup laughs. Barry coos out a cheer as he feels her belly jump between his hands, one baby moving to respond to his ministrations with an irritated kick. It initiates a kind of tussle, the two babies negotiating their cramped quarters as Lup squirms in her spot with a scrunched up nose.

Fischer lets out an alarmed chime, hopping up from their perch at the unexpected movements. They trill clipped, sharp notes in quick succession as they float above the two of them with cautious inquisitiveness, tendrils still inspecting Lup but tentative to get too close.

“Yes!” Barry exclaims, and he flops carefully onto Lup, snuggling his cheek against her round stomach and settling down with his arms wrapped around his wife’s waist.

“Oh, look at you,” Lup says. She clicks her tongue at him, but her fingers still find their way into his curls. “You must be so satisfied.”

“Yup,” Barry says, one hand rubbing her stomach in slow, even circles to help the babies settle down as he plants a kiss against it.

Barry’s triumph is short-won. Fischer’s uncertainty is quickly replaced by heated indignation that is immediately made known as tendrils find their way against Barry’s cheek. They glue themselves to Lup again, sandwiching Barry’s between the underside of their bell and Lup’s stomach, unrelenting even as Barry cries in shock and tries to wiggle his way free.

Soon, Barry finds himself trapped between jellyfish and Lup’s stomach as it jumps erratically with her giggling. Something awful oozes into his mouth, a few snippets of poems drifting across his mind and sticking themselves there like a song he can’t get out of his head, backed by the heavy, deep beats of Fischer’s calls and the drifting melody of Lup’s laughter, music to his ears.

“Oh, this is too good,” Lup cackles. “You absolutely deserve this,” she says breathlessly, and even with his vision obscured he can tell Lup is wiping tears from her eyes as she calls Magnus between each wheezing inhale.

#

“Ah, shit,” Lup groans. “Aw fuck.”

She’s alone on the ship right now, despite the rest of the crew’s insistence to have someone help her, having opted to stay in to make lunch alone with Taako having gallivanted off on another tour of magical discoveries in the towns below. It’s good to be on another advanced inhabited planet, their icebox and pantry stocked to last them another three cycle without the aid of magic and leaving her with an ingredient spread fit for the gods at her fingertips. She has the planet’s agricultural equivalent to veal, breaded and baking in the oven, sauces about to broil over on the stovetop, the entirety of prep running impeccably smooth under her watch, obviously.

Until she dropped the salt.

Of all things, the fucking salt.

She waddles her way over to the stove to turn off the burners before the smells making her stomach grumble turn bitter and burnt, leaning on the counter with one hand to her sore back as she looks down at the little decorative shaker on the floor. She huffs out a sigh.

“Well this sucks.”

Her feet drag with the weight of herself as she moves back towards the saltshaker. She has to guess when its by her feet, unable to see it below without peering down her side of her mountain of a belly. There’s a moment where she braces one hand on the counter, bending her knees carefully with her other arm outstretched. It’s slow going, and for a hopeful second she thinks she just might be able to manage it until her stomach stops her halfway and she has to readjust herself. She tries again, spreading her legs and squatting down awkwardly; she gets lower to the ground that time, but even as her splayed fingers wiggle towards the kitchen floor, she is not able to capture her target.

“Shit!” she cries. Her knees pop as she heaves herself up with a tremendous groan, a whimpering grunt escaping her as she pities her bloated, aching body. She kicks out one socked foot, the saltshaker skittering sadly across the tile.

She reaches for her ship-issued portable com, an old, worn thing held together by the sheer force of its will and duct tape after decades of use, wondering if its static will reach Barry a couple hundred metres below with the rest of the crew surveying the land, when a little tune echoes its way into the kitchen. A little glow emanates from around the corner as the simple melody grows louder, and Lup laughs to herself as a tendril peeks around the corner.

“Fischer,” she coos. “What are you doing out of your tank?”

The jellyfish pokes their head around the corner, letting out random smatterings of notes as they drift around Lup lazily. A tendril brushes absently over her stomach – a sweet greeting that’s become routine – almost distracting her as one subtly reaches for a page of her recipe book.

“Oh no you don’t, you little sneak,” Lup says. She swats the tentacle away, Fischer’s humming moving into a minor key. “Did you get Lucretia’s permission before leaving your tank?”

If Fischer understands her, they don’t indicate so. They move their short attention towards the counter, poking at half a head of lettuce and letting out a series of notes. 

It takes Lup a minute to understand the pattern. “Nope, not a cabbage.” She shoves Fischer over with a sigh. “But I think ‘lettuce’ lies outside of your seven letter vocab, doesn’t it buddy?”

A tentacle shifts to the storage box drilled to the bottom of the overhead cupboard, yanking out a bag from its opening where it was shoved along with the rest of the reusable totes they had hoarded over the years. No such thing as too many groceries bags in her and Taako’s kitchen.

B-A-G.

“Yup, that’s a bag,” Lup sighs, turning her attention back to the salt as Fischer wrestles the bag to sit rumpled on top of their bell like a silly hat. She could find the box of it, scraps the idea when she remembers they store it in the bottom cupboards. “Creesh’s lessons are paying off with you, huh.”

B-A-G-B-A-G-C-A-B-B-A-G-E-B-A-G-, a litany of childlike harmonies that tinkle in her ear as she tries to reach down for a third time, to no avail.

“You could help me, y’know,” she says, and she has to lift herself with both hands on the counter as she straightens up, groaning. Fischer just continues to mess around, humming in glee as they get tangled in the disaster they’re close to making out of salvaged food bags. 

Lup yanks one gently from a dancing tendril, letting it drift to the floor where it lands just beside the saltshaker still left abandoned. Fischer chimes in alarm, floating down while uttering a more frantic version of their three-note song, reaching down for its treasure. 

“Hey!” Lup calls to Fischer as they scour the floor, taking the opportunity while she still has it. “Hey, hey, don’t you ignore me now,” she says. Once she has their attention, she manages to squat down a bit again, knees spread around her massive stomach, one finger pointing down towards her much-needed loot.

“Do me a solid, Mr. Magic Mind Eraser,” Lup continues, pointing more insistently.

It almost looks like Fischer is tilting their bell to the side, like they’re lost in thought. Lup waits for one agonizing moment as Fischer just seems to stare; then, one tendril unfurls, reaching down, scooping up the salt in a tentative grip.

“Oh, you’re the best,” Lup declares, lifting herself up. Fischer floats up with her, bobbing like a buoy lost at sea by her side. “Next time the lid of your tank mysteriously breaks, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Fischer lets out a happy harmony, lifting the saltshaker, and Lup moves to grab it.

They turn before her fingers manage to wrap around it.

“Oh, you cute little asshole!” Lup yells after them. She huffs, waddling out of the kitchen as fast as she can after the train of bags hanging off of Fischer as they scurry away to Lucretia’s quarters with a new treasure in hand. Her conquest has become a chase, one that she is determined to win. “You get back here with that!”

#

The Starblaster revels in its bouts of chaos. It is a cacophonic, ramshackle crew of rambunctious joy that dwells in perpetual noise, and when Lup finally goes into labour, it is anything but an exception.

Most of the crew manages to cram themselves in the small bedroom that Lup eventually decides to nestle herself in for the rest of her ordeal, many reluctant to stray from the short loops of hallway Lup slowly shuffles down as she huffs and puffs through the ebb and flow of her pain. Even so, voices reverberate off the walls of the ship’s corridors with a harsh bite, and when one member of the team ventures farther in search of towels or snacks or blankets, the garbled noises of agony and feeble reassurances manage to reach the most distant recesses of the vessel, growing distorted as metallic, alien echoes.

Screams and tears crescendo at a heartbreaking, excruciatingly slow pace; the sound of sweat and blood and other more unpleasant things squeezing around the hum of the ship’s engine like a damper on violin strings, until finally the tension snaps like a fraying rope as Lup weeps through a smile and joy chimes like a bell in their voices and there are two babies wailing, swaddled in their parents’ arms.

From a distance, maybe from the ground below, the Starblaster sounds like a sigh of relief.

Inside, everyone’s too busy cleaning or fussing or counting tiny fingers and toes to hear beyond their collective reprieve to notice the soft, desperate noise of something crying a few rooms away. Davenport, ever the most alert and practical, is the first to notice, stopping to press a finger to his lips.

Everyone but the bundled infants shush themselves, raising their tired heads up towards the doorway. The new silence allows the slow, wounded weeping to be heard with a new clarity, Magnus and Lucretia whirling around towards each other in perfect synchronization with wide, panicked eyes.

“Oh, shit!” Magnus says. Lucretia’s already rushing past his burly form once he’s managed to get his fingers untangled from where they’ve clenched tight in his sideburns. “We forgot our other baby!”

“Really?!” someone calls – Taako or Lup, he can’t tell – as he follows Lucretia down the hallway. Her cotton socks slip on the tiles as she worries herself around the corner to her room, and she lets out a little concerned gasp as the glow of Fischer’s tank reflects off her face. 

The room is extraordinarily dark, black as the night twinkling through her porthole window except for the blue and indigo hues of Fischer’s luminescence. Through the adrenaline and latent exhaustion Magnus realizes Lucretia’s still in a matching set of flannel pajamas from the night before (he’s shirtless, somehow, but at least he’s wearing sweatpants over the boxers he wears to bed), having neglected to change with Lup waking up in the night and through the long day finally past them. The auroras of the tank shadow the dark circles under her eyes as she kneels down towards the glass, peering through at the cowering form tucked into the corner.

“Oh, Fischer,” Lucretia croons softly. She receives a long, monotone tune in response, sad, not unlike a whimper. “Oh sweetheart, it’s okay!”

Fischer continues his scared song as Magnus reaches up to lift the lid off the tank. Lucretia straightens by his side, and the two reach into the pungent fluid to coax the creature into their outstretched hands. It takes some persistence, but soon Magnus feels a few, silky tendrils wrap through his fingers, and the two are able to lift Fischer’s deflated form from his hiding place.

“I’m sorry buddy,” Magnus says quietly. “Was all that screaming scaring you?”

Fischer lets out another miserable, long cry, nestling in his arms as they toot out a scale in a minor key in increasing frequency, working themselves up now that they can revel in a caretaker’s comfort.

“Now, now, no more of that,” Lucretia coos. She clicks her tongue in a comforting, rhythmic reprimand, and Fischer calms down. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, this is a happy day.” She hums out a four-note tune, Magnus taking a minute to process the composition as Lucretia repeats it for Fischer to recite. 

B-A-B-----E. They draw out the rest before the last note, opting for a lower octave as if questioning her. Lucretia nods with a tiny, pleased smile, leading them and Magnus back to where he can hear the babies crying again.

“Yes, that’s right,” Magnus says as Fischer perches on Lucretia’s shoulder, trembling with uncertainty and excitement as they hesitantly peek through the fluffy mess of her curls. She whistles the tune one last time, and Fischer hums back with a newfound glee as Lup looks at the three of them with a radiant smile. “The babies are here.”

#

“There ya go,” Merle says, his rough hands gentle as they easily pass the support of Iggy’s head into Barry’s waiting hands. “That’s it, you’re a natural.”

It’s funny to watch the poor man go from incessantly holding his newborn children to literally quaking with worry over handling them in just a few days’ time.. His usual anxiety, a barely there stutter and an unsureness in his movements, had finally caught up to his euphoria over his newly discovered fatherhood, then reiterated over itself at the prospect of being responsible for the wellbeing of two tiny new half-humans. Merle has to hand him the lukewarm baby bottle with repeated reassurances, Barry questioning the temperature and the position of feeding until Merle quite literally has to tell him to just give her the damn bottle, she’s fine, and Barry sinks into a calm, adoring reverence as his daughter shifts against him with her taciturn eyes.

There’s a shrill cry behind him, followed by an exasperated groan as Merle turns to see the second baby throw a fit in Taako’s arms.

He isn’t doing any better.

“I could go wake up Lup, if you want,” Merle suggests, although his own voice is dragged down by his own reluctance at the offer. His hand overlaps with Taako’s, shifting to better support the baby’s head.

“Don’t you dare,” Taako and Barry say in unison. Merle just shrugs, adjusting Taako’s hands so the nipple of the bottle presses against the baby’s cheek; Chich’s head turns towards it instinctively, quieting down into muffled little grunts that make Taako practically deflate with relieved exhaustion.

“I can’t keep coming to your rescue every night, you know that,” Merle chuckles. He perches himself in a seat by the counter of the ship’s narrow kitchen, watching as Taako and Barry press beside each other, arm against arm. Taako lets his head fall onto the other man’s shoulder, his bleary eyes lost under locks of hair that drape over his face in a tangled mess. Barry manages his usual loving smile, however, even if his eyes are rimmed with dark circles and he has to force his eyes to blink open every few minutes.

“You’re better at this than us,” Taako says. 

“Nonsense,” Merle crows. “I’m not the one with kids of my own.”

“Says the official dad of the ship,” Barry laughs tiredly.

“You watch your tongue, young man,” Merle replies, and Barry snickers to himself, the baby in his arms groaning as her latch on the bottle releases. Merle can’t help but smile fondly as Barry dotes over her; he asks if she’s done, if her tummy is full despite knowing he won’t get a coherent answer back, a thumb brushing over a tiny pointed ear as he cradles her head in his palm in order to move her over the towel flung over his shoulder. His hand runs smooth circles against her back, and she almost sinks against his chest, little face contorting with the effort of trying to burp. “That’s technically your position now.”

“Does that make you the grandfather, then?” Barry smiles, laughing when Merle scoffs at him.

“Way to make me feel old, Barold.”

“We all gotta keep up with the dadly duties now,” Taako says, his voice growing pointed, “including Magnus and Lucretia.” He seems to perk up, his head upright as he peers with suspicious eyes at the entryway to the kitchen. Merle looks over his shoulder to see what Taako is glaring at, something glowing as it hides in the hallway, spying.

“Fischer,” Barry intones, the lilt of his voice tinted with a parental scorn. There’s a grumpy coo from the doorway as a flash of neon disappears behind the wall, only to sulk its way slowly into view again. “You’re not supposed to be up this late, are you?”

Another grumbling coo. A couple lazy tendrils brush against the doorframe, lethargic and sad.

“Agh, you guys are being too harsh on the poor thing,” Merle says. “C’mere now,” he waves at the entryway, and Fischer chimes with uncertainty as they take in the scene in front of them. Fischer drifts in with trepidation, keeping a wide berth of Taako and Barry as they circle their way to sit just behind Merle’s shoulder. Where once the jellyfish was filled with a giddy curiosity at the new additions to the family, that joy and playfulness was now replaced by a sour disposition towards the two wrinkled things screaming all hours of the night and stealing away everyone’s attention.

“You can stay with the babies if you’re not going to be a pest about it, okay?” Barry says, eyeing Fischer with a controlled scrutiny. 

“Oh, c’mon now,” Merle soothes, as Fischer curls up into a cranky glob at his back; their tendrils fold, a novel reinterpretation of someone crossing their arms. “The lil’ guy just misses all that love we’re so used to giving them.”

“And?” Taako says. Merle doesn’t need to look behind him to see Fischer glide away, Taako’s eyes following their movements silently.

“I’d thought you’d be understanding, Taako,” Merle continues, grinning. “Considering you were the first born, I’d think you would know all about the older-sibling syndrome.”

“With all the attention he craves, you wouldn’t believe he was lying about being the older twin,” Barry wheezes, cracking a smile as Taako scoffs at him.

“I am holding an infant right now,” Taako says, “do you really want to start this?”

“You’re holding my infant,” Barry retorts. “Just a reminder before you use that as a threat.”

Taako’s posture suddenly grows ramrod straight, his eyes wild as he glares daggers in Barry’s direction, his bed hair a wild crown framing his manic face. The hand holding the bottle shoots up – the infant in the other one letting out an indignant cry at the abrupt rescinding of dinner – and points at him. He takes a step forward, imposing. “Don’t you dare.”

“Fellas, fellas,” Merle says, moving to stand between them, his arms outstretched and placating. “There’s no need for this-“

“What did I even do-?” Barry says, his tired eyes bewildered. His own eyes follow Taako’s line of vision, sluggishly deliberating over the unexpected change in mood, looking over his shoulder as if to find the victim of his scrutiny.

Surprisingly, he does. 

“Don’t,” Taako continues, taking another step, brushing past Barry. “You. Dare.”

Merle almost laughs at the scene; instead, he takes Taako’s hand, curling the accusatory finger back around the bottle and moving it back so the baby can continue feeding before the crying wakes up Lup.

“Now, that’s enough, young-,” Merle ponders the right descriptor, ignoring the comment about his dadly demeanor behind him. “That’s enough, young fish. That is not how we get people’s attention.”

Fischer grumbles as he sinks so they’re level with the counter, the tendril that had ever so slowly been tipping over the baby bottle discarded there freezing halfway. The bottle wobbles back onto its base when they let go with a resentful hum.

“What are you, a cat?” Merle says. “We don’t knock over things willy-nilly, you lil’ sneak.” He opens up an arm that Fischer takes gratefully, if sullen, wrapping one half of its tendrils around it. With their craving for attention momentarily satisfied, a few tentacles reach up towards Barry in an amicable change of mood, inspecting the bundle he rocks in his arms.

“Be gentle now,” Barry says softly. He adjusts the baby on his shoulder so a little face is visible, slack and squished against the fabric of his nightshirt. He guides a tendril to a relatively safe place, even if Taako hisses between his teeth and wrinkles his nose protectively; it settles on the infant’s back, petting it dutifully. “That’s it. Gentle, gentle.”

Fischer murmurs a soft, undulating tune, almost like a lullaby as the eyeless bell of their body stares in fascination, titling back and forth with innocent wonderment. The infant almost stares back, squirming as she yawns and her eyes slowly droop, Fischer’s gentle singsong voice overwhelming her with the enticing pull of sleep in her milk-drunk state. 

Her little fists splay out just as Fischer’s tendril drifts by her side. The brush of the appendage against her hand makes her fingers curl instinctively, pulling the cord-like thing to her chest as a familiar substitute for her old source of comfort. The pull turns into a tug.

Fischer reciprocates.

“Shit,” Barry breathes under his breath as Fischer’s lullaby comes to an abrupt yelp of a conclusion, as if a pianist at his bench had all but passed out fitfully and crashed face first into the keys. Merle is too late to pull Fischer back as they whine loudly, almost as if offended by the action; the noisiness of it is enough to yank the baby out of hopeful sleep completely, finishing off what rudely tearing away her newest cuddletoy had start. She lets out a slow cry in Barry’s arms, who rocks her with a frantic reassurance as he tries to get her to settle down. 

“Alright,” Merle grunt. He takes the ends of Fischer’s tendrils in hand, pulling them along like a dog on a leash, their cries of protest doing nothing to quiet the cacophony slowly unfolding in the kitchen. “Back t’ the tank with ya.”

“What did I say to them,” Taako says, and Merle shrinks into himself to see Taako with his ears pinned back to his head, his teeth practically bared in his fury as the infant in his arms decides to join the chorus. “What did I say to Lucretia about keeping her pet off their leash-”

“Keep your voice down,” Barry hisses. Merle hears him curse under his breath at a groan that sounds from stairway leading up to the crew’s quarters, the soft shuffle of exhausted feet descending the creaking metal of the old staircase. 

Merle just keeps walking to the door. Fischer follows with Taako’s glare on their backs the entire way, the two of them giving Lup’s room a wide berth as they head back to bed and their tank, respectively.

#

Fischer always hates the leap, each inter-universal jump unsettling them just as their very first did. There is not much to comprehend from their tank nestled in the corner of Lucretia’s room – loaded with toys and trinkets that fail to occupy their attention, the world narrows down to the screeching engine of the ship and the blurred darkness encroaching on the porthole window. Fischer is not often alone in these moments – when a good year graces them, when the crew can keep all their lives intact, one always provides Fischer company, returning swiftly as they’re unravelled and rewound – but today is an exception, and it seems to rattle Fischer’s nerves more than it should.

Davenport can hear the crying from the cockpit; it crescendos as he swerves around a column of writhing, liquid opal, steadying himself against the whiplash as he straightens the ship and ascends, higher and higher, the streaked clouds making way to open sky, then space, then the ripples of space-time as threads of light appear on his skin. The speed is exhilarating, terrifying, but there is only a deep, ugly sorrow gnawing away at him that he needs to keep his focus from now.

“It’s okay, Fischer,” he mutters to himself. The ship trembles around him, shrieking where the metal joints are welded and screwed together. His teeth chatter against the turbulence rocking him. He keeps going – he has to. “It’ll be alright. They’ll be back soon.”

Fischer keeps crying from their distant recess within the ship, tucked away with the Light, the shining bait luring the Hunger from his family below. He tamps down his fear as his knuckles go white on the yoke, while Fischer lets theirs loose, crying out just at the sheer concept that their friends and caregivers, no matter how routine the crew’s return has always been, may not come back.

“They’ll be back,” Davenport continues with a sigh. He starts to break apart, unwinding into the shimmering matter that makes up his being, setting his jaw as he lies through his teeth. “They’ll all be back.”

#

Taako grumbles when he notices that the door to Lucretia’s quarters is swung ajar into the hallway, dragging his tired feet as his hair leaves a dripping trail from a bath he had let grow cold around him. The halls are dark, nothing but the block of gradient liquid light from Fischer’s tank spilling into the corridor lighting his path as he trudges to his room. He thinks of pulling himself down the next hall towards the kitchen to find Lucretia, to complain about her pet wandering around the ship with abandon and to tighten her supervision, before his ear perks up at the chime of sing-song melodies from inside the room. They’re gentler than usual, nothing more than a soft hum that befits the hushed atmosphere over the Starblaster for the last couple weeks, and as he peeks around the door he can see that Fischer has an audience.

Lucretia’s bed and desk are empty; there is someone with long, low ears and hunched shoulders sitting on her floor, head tilted as if intuned to the music with an enraptured scrutiny. She stares into the swirling bath of Fischer’s home, the fish’s movement almost enchanting. Taako, only able to see the back of her head, can tell that her eyes must be blank.

“Didn’t Lucretia yell at you last time you tried snoopin’ through her stuff?” Taako says, loathe to interrupt the silence but unable to do anything else. He sees Lup startle, the jump of her shoulders and the watery hitch of her breath, but she doesn’t turn around. 

She says nothing as Taako creeps in, stares at her hands as they fold and refold themselves in her lap when her brother plops down beside her with a groan. Their knees push against each other painfully, arms uncomfortably flush against the other, and Lup leans further into his touch. 

“It’s late,” Taako says, watching her fingers slowly, slowly twist around each other. Her hands are damp, knuckles stained; a glance barely spared towards her face, wetness on her cheeks reflecting Fischer’s shifting pastel glow. “You-“

“Can’t sleep,” she croaks, unmoving, finishing the thought before he can form the words for it. 

“Do you want me to come to bed with you?” Taako offers after a moment. Lup shakes her head, still refusing to raise her head and look anywhere but at her own lap, but letting Taako slowly run his hand down the inside of her forearm, twining their fingers tight when his hand reaches her.

“I just,” she breathes, her voices shaking. She looks to the shoulder opposite Taako in a futile attempt to find something interesting to stare at before pressing a hand to a red-rimmed eye. He watches her lips tremble. “Barry isn’t – there tonight,” she mumbles. “He just stalks the halls – he cries with me there but I can – I still hear him in the lab,” she sobs, and it wracks her quivering frame. Taako gives her arm a gentle tug, and she takes his silent offer; he can smell the grease and sweat in her hair as she rests her head on his shoulder and cries freely there.

“I can’t do anything for him,” she whimpers quietly, and Taako swallows down the knot lodged deep in his throat. “I feel like – like he’s hiding for my sake, but I can’t do anything.”

He shushes her, squeezing her hand tight and pushing the grief down. It twists painfully in his stomach, where Barry had laid his head three nights ago as he gripped Taako from one of the chairs in his workspace, sobbing and staining Taako’s shirt with the same mournful words on his lips. Taako had done the same then, blinking tears away, digging his nails into his palms until the pain overwhelmed the sadness or he bled before he could cry – not like he wasn’t coping properly; he mourned his loss in private, allowed himself to muffle his cries in his bed, sleuthing away a soft granny square blanket with a burp-up stain. He’s made a mess of himself, will let himself do so again, but only when his sister isn’t clutching him like a catastrophe in comparison.

“Lulu,” he sighs helplessly, saying none of the things he wants to demand of her but knows he can’t. He wants to tell her to rest, to get some sleep so her eyes don’t look so dead when she emerges for meals only to pick at her food, to just fucking talk to him instead of holing up in her misery, but he doesn’t. The footwork of this little dance is familiar by now – it changes slightly by the day, and the rest of the crew is left to stumble around her and Barry as they drift like ghosts around the craft – a procedure that’s as easy as breathing with a morsel of food lodged in his throat. Taako finds them, someone does eventually, and she cries or screams or slams the door in someone’s face, and he doesn’t look up from the runes scribbles out in the laboratory as he apologizes through tears, and they all stay silent and let the cycle repeat unrepentant.

He let’s Fischer fill the silence, the soft glow accompanying their soothing hum a weight in his bleary, tired eyes. It’s the chime of a familiar, simple tune, what once was cheery and curious now a mellow, rootless question as Fischer seems to peer at the melancholy sight through tank’s glass.

B—A—B--E the tune repeats, a slow, tinkling thrum akin to funeral music meant for a church organ played out on a toy piano. He remembers Lucretia trying to hush Fischer in the first week of the new cycle, and her young face had looked so old, drawn into a tired frown as she chose her words with a dismal sincerity, only for Fischer to reply with the same four notes like a child asking when a dead relative would come back home. 

The hazy memory of his aunt leaning down towards him with wet cheeks and a quiet voice resurfaces, her face a mishmash of scraps half-forgotten over decades of neglected recall, the feeling of tempered but confused denial, desperate hope clutched in his and Lup’s young, clasped hands. He wonders if she’s thinking the same for a moment, then pushes it down again as he rocks her to the tune. 

Lup’s hands continue to twist in their laps, her fingers fumbling over the thin edges of something rough and wrinkled. He tries to unfold it where it’s crumpled in Lup’s palm only for her to lurch away. Her fists clench, and when she stares aimlessly into the swirling galaxy of the jellyfish’s tank again, there’s a manic solemnness in her eyes.

“Lu,” Taako says, an edge to his voice. 

“’S nothing,” she whines, barely resisting as her brother forces it from her grip. He unfolds the slip of parchment with shaking hands – nothing but a torn bit from the corner of a loose-leaf sheet, just off-white with disuse but too new to be of age, and two names written in a neat print under tearstains.

“What,” he says, getting to his feet on weak knees, “the fuck are you thinking.”

“Gods, just give me a break,” Lup cries. She flails her arms out in exasperation, getting up to try and snatch the slip of paper back and failing when Taako steps back. “I just want a fucking break, I’m sick and tired-“

“I know you’re sick and tired,” Taako says, “of every crapping piece of bullshit that this fucking mission put us through. But this-?” he says, and his voice catches in his throat as his mouth gapes around the noiseless words he struggles to find, his clenched fist shaking the offending scrap with absolute disgust. “What in the seven fucking hells are you fucking thinking, Lup!”

“You don’t need to know what I’m fucking thinking!” she snaps. Her voice is loud now, shrill, and she rises up to her full height, catching herself as she wobbles on her feet. “This is my choice to make-“

“It sure the hell is not!” Taako refutes. He takes a step towards her, and Lup matches him toe-to-toe. “You think you have the authority to just - wipe all that out?”

“For what I’m going through?” she shrieks; her voice rings in his ears, the force of her grief knocking his loose. “For what I have to watch my husband go through? Weeping to himself every night, alone, begging to gods that won’t hear us. For what I have to watch when you guys dance around me, like I’ll break, like I’m not already a fucking mess to begin with!”

“And you think this is the damn solution?” Taako yells, wiping away the tears on his cheeks furiously, and he’s just about to step forward to physically shake some sense into his sister when she moves to interrupt him.

“God forbid I try to clean my own mess up, Taako!” she screams, wailing. Her hands tremble as they beat the air, her breath hitching on every sob as she claws at her own hair, pacing with heavy steps. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating, her face crumbling in on itself, and when Taako steps forward this time it’s with an embrace she collapses into.

“I just want to forget,” Lup cries into his shoulder. “I’m so sick of and tired of being sick and tired and fucking sad all the time, I’m so tired of grieving, I just want to forget everything-“ a cluster of sobs interrupt her, and Taako rubs her back as their knees hit the floor, rocking her back and forth as he lets her ramble. “Just- just the fact that I left them, I fucking left them,” she continues, “and you’re all here in just as much pain and it’s my fault, my fault they’re alone, and I just want to forget, Taako, I want to  
forget it all.

“I’m so fucking selfish,” she says. “And I just keep being selfish, I just can’t watch you guys dodge around it anymore.”

“You’re not,” Taako says, reminds her even as she shakes her head to negate him against his shoulder. He’s crying now, his tears falling into her hair, and he runs his fingers through it so he can push her back, just to cup her face and wipe her tears before tucking her in close to his again. “And you’re allowed to be anyways, y’know? You’re allowed to be selfish, sometimes.

“And y’know what?” he says, and his hands cover hers, wet with tears as he twists around the scrap of paper in their joined hands. She sobs when she hears it tear, but doesn’t make a move to stop him, cupping the shreds of it like something sacred. “I’m allowed to be, too. And I’m gonna be, and maybe that’s mean of me, to not let you do this, but I don’t want to forget.

“I don’t want to forget I’m an uncle,” he says softly, breathing deeply. “Not my family, not what I’m fighting for. And I don’t think you really want to, either.”

Lup sags into him at that, her arms wrapped around him as he soothes her in the arms of Fischer’s cadence. Her apology is lost in the folds of his bathrobe, unneeded and wasted on him as he lets his sister slowly, slowly calm down, drifting off into the embrace as she mumbles the same lullabies she had rushed to remember from home in the short time she had. She rises to her feet with the support of her brother’s reassurances, a certainty uncharacteristic of him when he weaves tales of reunion against her temple, and the two of them curl up in Lucretia’s bed knowing she won’t bother them about it in the morning.

#

Lucretia has to tie a rock to the little wooden figure so it sinks to the bottom of the tank. Her too-old knees ache as she stretches over the brim of it, still sore from her journey over the alpine terrain surrounding Raven’s Roost in order to retrieve her commission promptly. She spares no time in taking in the details of the woodwork, knows she hasn’t earned that brief nostalgic respite with what she’s about to do - and what she has done – as she drops the duck into its depths.

It disappears into the mass of tendrils that drift mesmerizingly in the swirling gooey aquarium, what was only just a few tiny tentacles so long ago now a mass of dozens of sinewy thread all tangled up into one beautiful mess. Fischer’s coo is much deeper now, like they were a teenage boy whose voice broke during adolescence, leaving Lucretia feeling like an aging mother aching for simpler times. The song reverberates in her head, her senses awash in the info that flashes through her mind in bursts as she plunges her arms in up to her armpits.

She doesn’t bother rolling her sleeves up again when they inevitably fall from where they’re bunched at her shoulders. Her operation needs to be quick, so she lets the fabric saturate with the violet hues of ichor, bright pastel stains against her grey and blue. A net floats, submerged along with her grip as she prods around the bottom of the tank, leaning over further and further until she can’t tell if her stomach hurts from her self-distain or the edge of the tank digging into her flesh. Her face is so close to the waters that baby hairs touch the surface, beads of cold sweat falling from her wrinkled forehead, rings rippling out and distorting her already blurry image of the scene below as she lets her other senses guide her.

A smaller, tinnier chime, no louder than a pin drop, sings out in alarm as her net bumps against something free floating, and she hauls it up swiftly. The baby she retrieves just barely fits in both of her wet palms, its fragile, almost transparent bell trembling with fear against her as it sits limp and petrified in her hands.

“Shh,” she comforts, scooping a helping of ichor from the bigger tank into the glass pot she has strapped to her hip. “You’re okay,” she says despite herself, tucking the scared little thing into her tank and folding it up into her arms protectively.

She swears to herself as Fischer starts to stir in the tank, their bell swishing back and forth feverishly as she descends the ladder. Her feet find solid ground as she watches the wooden duck, just moments ago so carefully doted over, start to drift to the top of the tank again as it is relinquished from Fischer’s neglectful grip. 

She thinks her ears are ringing as she turns to leave the room; she can’t hear Fischer singing cheerily anymore, only horrified silence filling the sprawling space of the chambers. The lack of music disturbs her, and her robes swish around her ankles as she picks up her pace, afraid the walls will come down around her without the presence of the ever-changing melodies that support them. The baby in her arms squawks, cry muffled by the tank and her soaked sleeves draped over it.

Her ears are not ringing, she realizes, at least not enough to block out the agonizing bellow that follows, rattling her ribs hard enough to knock the wind out of her. The floor shakes beneath her, the glass of the tank reverberating as if an inch from to shattering, the walls protesting as they resonate and threaten to collapse.

Fischer screams, shrieking and wailing for their child back, and Lucretia can’t hear herself start crying over the tremendous volume of its anguish as it overflows. Fischer screams, uninhibited, and its like the grief garbles their attempt at enunciation as seven notes get lost in the unbridled noise, notes that Lucretia can still pick out clear as day.

Fischer screams, and Lucretia is jolted back to the memories of another mother’s grief, etched and echoing onto the deck of a ship lost to decades of amnesia as she crumpled and begged everything and nothing for her children back.

Fischer screams, and Lucretia falls into the safety of her office to weep with the guilt of what she’s done.

**Author's Note:**

> cry with me
> 
> tumblr @daisybrien hmu


End file.
